What experts think about the 'Croydon accent'

My London spoke to three experts to find out why the police were mentioning the 'Croydon accent' in their appeal and whether there even is such a thing.

Often people can think that an accent is very specific to part of London, when actually it is heard widely across the capital, academics told us.

Paul Kerswill, a professor in the department of language and linguistic science at the University of York, said: "My experience is that it’s not possible to reliably tell where in London someone is from."

Two of our experts referred to the rise of a type of speaking called 'Multicultural London English' or MLE.

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We're used to accents being linked to areas but MLE is more strongly linked to age, educational background and social class.

Professor Kerswill added: "In general, it’s much more a question of social class/education/occupation and also whether you speak Multicultural London English or something influenced by it.

"Another thing worth noting is that people may assert that someone has a local accent, i.e. from the same narrow locality as themselves, believing that that accent is particular to that locality.

"In truth, for the most part that accent is found in the rest of the city, too.

"I’d say this is more the case in very big cities like London."

Another phonetics expert, from University College London, said: "I would think it highly unlikely that there is a ‘Croydon accent’ identifiable as such, distinct from South London in general.

"If there is such an accent, I do not know what its identifying characteristics might be."

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While Jane Setter, professor of phonetics at the University of Reading, agreed with Professor Kerswill that when people refer to a 'Croydon' accent they may be thinking of a tone of voice actually heard elsewhere in London, too.

However she suggested Croydon locals would have particular features to their speech as well.

She said: "I would not be surprised if specific accent features which differed from a more general South London accent did exist among speakers whose families have lived in the Croydon area for a length of time, or among people moving into the area who want to identify themselves as ‘Croydon’.

"However I’d suggest that Croydon is probably more like Cockney-type London accents, as these speakers have had to move away from central London for various reasons and tend to now be living around the periphery, or in places like north Kent and Essex."

Police used the accent to ask the public for information (Image: PA)

Professor Setter also explained why the police could get closer to tracking down criminals by mentioning accents in appeals for information.

She added: "We do make use of regional accent features in forensic speaker comparison so this can be useful when trying to trace people or in expert witness testimony in court.

"What you have to remember, however, is that everyone has an accent of some kind.

"What forensic speech scientists are looking for is distinctiveness in speech and similarities in distinctive patterns which can be compared across two or more samples of speech."

There can even be 'voice line-ups' in some criminal investigations, Professor Setter, when recordings of suspects exist.

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